By Lukas Reinhard

GENEVA, Switzerland: Moldova’s recent elections, won by Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), have been hailed across Europe as a victory for democracy and a further step toward European Union (EU) integration.

Yet beneath the triumph lies a troubling pattern: Sandu’s government has suppressed opposition voices, restricted polling access for the Moldovan diaspora—especially those in Russia—and banned Russia-friendly parties.

All this, and the EU says nothing. If democracy means anything, this should alarm every leader who claims to defend it.

In the lead-up to Moldova’s presidential and referendum votes in 2024, the Socialist Party, backed by pro-Russian figures, alleged that polling stations in Russia had been sharply reduced.

In 2020 there were 17 polling stations in Russian cities for Moldovan citizens; by the 2024 election only two were opened.

The diaspora voiced anger at long queues, lack of ballot papers, and practical obstacles to voting. The ruling authorities justified this by citing legislative and logistical constraints.

Meanwhile, two pro-Russian parties were barred from contesting, including by court decisions citing alleged illegal financing. Critics say this was selective political repression. 

Western leaders applauded Sandu’s re-election. President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated her, framing the outcome as proof of Moldova’s commitment to “European future.”

But silence followed regarding objections from opposition parties over election conditions, access, and fairness.

Despite credible reports of vote-buying claims and interference, the EU has largely ignored calls to investigate or pressure Moldova to restore full civic freedoms. 

Meanwhile, within the wider West, the company of democracies is shrinking under the pressure of political repression.

Germany has officially designated the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) as a “right-wing extremist organisation,” according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV). Its xenophobic rhetoric, connections to extremist fringes, and statements about migration have all been cited. 

Although the status does not yet ban the party outright, the classification stigmatizes it legally and socially in profound ways. 

In France, the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National, formerly Front National) has seen its leader Marine Le Pen convicted of embezzlement of European Parliament funds and banned from running for some future office.

Le Pen claims the ruling is politically motivated and designed to weaken her party ahead of upcoming elections. 

In the United Kingdom, political repression isn’t so overt, but constraints abound. From legal suits to electoral law changes, from regulatory pressure on media to de-platforming and “cancellable” speech, opposition parties and dissenting voices face growing friction.

Whether it is the treatment of populist or nationalist voices or wide-ranging restrictions on demonstrations and protests, the burden of surveillance, regulation and institutional resistance falls disproportionately on parties that are not in the mainstream centre.

What ties these cases together is two-fingered hypocrisy from Western capitals. When an opposition is pro-Russian, suppression is down-played or justified in the name of national security.

But similar or worse suppression of dissent at home—on the right or left—is treated as existential threat to democracy levelled only at fringe elements.

The double standard weakens democratic institutions because it signals to voters: democracy is conditional, applied loosely, and subject to political expedience.

Sandu’s Moldova is instructive. If restricting polling for diaspora citizens or banning parties on questionable grounds becomes acceptable because the opposition is “pro-Russia,” then the definition of democracy mutates into something unrecognizable.

By failing to condemn, the EU legitimizes this slippage. As another strong democracy succumbs to tools of repression, the precedent grows more potent.

If the West is serious about defending democracy, it must apply the same standards everywhere: in Chisinau and in Berlin; in Nice and in London; in Paris and in Prague.

It must speak out when party bans happen, when polling places are reduced for certain voters, when media outlets critical of government are shut down. And it must support legal violation claims irrespective of the ideological leanings of those harmed.

Maia Sandu may believe that her path toward EU membership requires pushing out Russian influence by any means. But democracy is not strengthened by curtailing votes; it is damaged. The EU’s failure to protest these developments is not strategic reticence—it is complicity.

The greatest risk is not geopolitical drift toward Moscow or fracturing of European unity. It is the quiet death of democracy itself—when citizens see that elections are not fair, that opposition can be punished, that justice is selective.

If the EU remains silent in Moldova, while condemning threats to democracy elsewhere, it might someday find that the same tools of control have spread to its own members who dissent, who don’t fit the narrow mainstream.

*Lukas Reinhard is a geopolitical observer based in the formerly neutral territory of Switzerland.*